VisitBritain launches campaign with SAS

The tourism promotion is aimed at boosting repeat visitors to Britain by attracting them to new places beyond central London.

The UK’s national tourism promotion agency VisitBritain has launched a “digital campaign” with SAS to boost inbound arrivals from Scandinavia.

The £150,000 (€173,000) campaign, which has just been put into action, will run for five weeks in Denmark, Norway and Sweden to promote travel to the UK and drive visitor growth in and beyond central London.

SAS flies to London Heathrow from Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm up to 16 times a day on weekdays and will launch a new route from Copenhagen to London Stansted five times a week from April 1.

But the new tourism campaign is specifically aimed at shining a spotlight on destinations outside London’s Zone 1, encouraging visitors to discover the London boroughs of Greenwich, Hackney and Richmond.

A focus is also on promoting cities and towns within a two-hour radius of the capital, inspiring visitors to travel further and explore more in destinations including Brighton, Oxford and Windsor.

The content will run across VisitBritain and SAS online and social channels, including dedicated campaign pages.

It targets repeat visitors to the UK and travellers who VisitBritain calls ‘buzzseekers’ and ‘explorers’ – those who seek adventure and authentic experiences as well as activities and learning experiences.

Actual bookings
This is the first time VisitBritain has partnered with SAS to focus on Scandinavia, “driving growth from northern Europe and converting the aspiration to visit Britain into actual bookings”, VisitBritain says.

“It is great to be partnering with SAS for the first time, amplifying our campaign to convert the aspiration to visit Britain into actual bookings and promoting our message of welcome,” said Robin Johnson, VisitBritain’s Europe director.

“We know that visitors from Scandinavia rate Britain highly for its famous sights and monuments and our campaign highlights the fantastic destinations and attractions that travellers can discover within a short journey from central London.

“We are showing that Britain is a great destination to visit right now, encouraging visitors to travel further and stay longer.”

Somewhere new
SAS’s head of international marketing, Will Reed, added: “We know our travellers fly every week in their thousands to visit London and by partnering with VisitBritain we aim to share more of the easily accessible places and hidden gems, either inside or outside of London, to explore and experience somewhere new.”

The latest official figures show that from January to September last year there were 1.6 million inbound visits from Scandinavia to the UK. Visitors from Scandinavia spent £918 million in the UK during this period.

VisitBritain’s target now is that for every pound invested in the campaign, visitors will spend an additional £25 in Britain.

Visitors to London can make use of the VisitBritain ‘shop’ to buy visitor travel and Oyster cards, “providing convenience for travellers to easily explore the city on London’s transport networks,” the promotion agency says.